Semele at Glyndebourne — Handel’s showpiece arias land with style

Receive free Music updates

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Music news every morning.

Semele has a problem. She has fallen for Jupiter, the king of the gods, and he for her, but if she asks for the reward of immortality, her earthly body will be unable to withstand the lightning force of his embrace. Tricked to do so, she gets burnt to a crisp.

In Handel’s version of the tale, based on a witty libretto by Congreve, the ancient Greek myth becomes an 18th-century morality tale. Modern stagings have relished its themes of hubris punished and marital infidelity, notably in a much-travelled production by Richard Carsen that set the story among the British royal family with Juno as a Queen Elizabeth II-lookalike.

There is no whiff of that kind of satire in Glyndebourne’s new production. Following a couple of wildly over-the-top Handel productions — Saul with its astoundingly brilliant visuals, Alcina convoluted and unconvincing — the latest of the festival’s Handel directors, Adele Thomas, has opted for penny-plain.

One of the striking features of Semele, originally performed in concert by Handel, is its shift from everyday life to a world of bling atop Mount Olympus. A more-or-less bare stage and dun-coloured costumes capture the drudge of human life here, but Semele must be wondering why she has bothered to ascend when all she finds aloft is a bit of extra vegetation — not a fiery dragon or peacock-drawn chariot to be seen.

There is little sense that anybody has tuned in to Semele’s specific, lightly ironic tone. The air is constantly charged with emotional intensity, especially from Athamas and Ino, but the logic of their feelings as shown here sometimes jars with the text. The chorus, excellent as always at Glyndebourne, has also been encouraged to emote hyperactively, to little obvious benefit, and a group of dancers has been thrown in to add peripheral energy.

Baroque piquancy and point is hit most successfully in the lively musical performance by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under conductor Václav Luks, though they had no need to pep up Handel with extra percussion.

The role of Semele is nothing short of a gift and Joélle Harvey brings to it period style and a bright voice, skipping about showpiece arias such as “Myself I shall adore” with admirable precision.

There is a sweetly honeyed rendering of “Where’er you walk” from Stuart Jackson’s Jupiter, but elsewhere he is inclined to shout. Jennifer Johnston, dressed like Turandot wandering into the wrong opera, sings strongly as Juno, while her counterpart as Ino, Stephanie Wake-Edwards (the two roles are often taken by the same singer), prioritises character over stylish singing, as if better suited to the jealous Juno herself. There are no drawbacks in countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen’s fine singing as Athamas. Male soprano Samuel Mariño, an irritatingly flighty Iris, sounds sweet, but the voice is not on a big enough scale.

Perhaps the biggest news to come out of this Semele is that Glyndebourne has reorganised its legendary dinner interval for the occasion. An unusual division of Handel’s score has resulted in two hour-long intervals so audiences get extra time to enjoy the festival cuisine.

★★★☆☆

To August 26, glyndebourne.com